How are you dealing with the desire to get a better job for yourself (growth, money, toxic current environment and/or any other reason) while so many people are unemployed and struggling to get ANY job, while others just keep saying how awful the job market is and/or saying to just “suck it up” and deal with my current situation?
Anonymous
How are you dealing with the desire to get a better job for yourself (growth, money, toxic current environment and/or any other reason) while so many people are unemployed and struggling to get ANY job, while others just keep saying how awful the job market is and/or saying to just “suck it up” and deal with my current situation?
It’s impossible to escape how difficult the job market is across industries right now. I know so many people who have either been recently laid off or out of work for several months, struggling to get anything in their field.
I understand that, technically, I should feel grateful that I have a decently secure job (at least I hope, but you never know) that pays pretty well and has a decent work life balance. I understand that there’s more to work, and I do devote a lot of time outside of work to exercise, my relationship, friends, and other hobbies.
That said, I AM fundamentally a very career-driven person. I feel so stagnant in my current role of nearly 3 years, that I’ve gotten everything I possibly can out of it. I’m bored. I have no motivation. I feel like I’ve given this role so much of my time and energy, way too much in fact.
There’s no growth potential in my role (which I was very recently told after being told I was on track for an earned promotion at the end of last year). My passion for my industry (media) is still here, but I feel so beyond unappreciated, burnt out, and stressed.
Oh yeah, and beyond the fact that it just plain sucks to feel like I’m stuck in a hamster wheel going round and round with no hope of a promotion, my boss is an asshole.
Beyond gaslighting me about my promotion opportunities (from “you’re doing great” and “will be submitted” to “what are you talking about? I never said that …), he obnoxiously talks over others in meetings and takes them over. While even C-level execs at the company have applauded my initiative and speaking abilities, he’s repeatedly mocked me for how I speak, that I “make things about me and shouldn’t be taking charge” of my own meetings, yet another time said I “do the bare minimum” and “don’t do much” (despite data-backed bullets that prove my work drives strong results).
And too many more examples to name.
I’m ready to move on. But I keep having friends encouraging me to “be grateful I have a job,” an industry acquaintance who just knows the basics of this told me to “suck it up”(a man saying that, what a shock), and all these general doom and gloom vibes that it would be dumb of me to leave a pretty secure job.
But I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong in wanting more and better for myself. I deserve to be treated better and to grow in my career, even if the job market is stressful right now.
This is part-vent, part-question, but I’d appreciate any thoughts!
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